Ras Stage 2 Accident

andrewgturnbull

Hi folks.

A guy I know is working as a team mechanic over at the Ras - he took this photo after the stage 2 crash:

http://twitpic.com/1qpp8x

Story here:

http://www.irishcycling.com/publish/news/art_4910.shtml

Scary stuff - hope everyone recovers well.

Cheers, Andy

emadden

Looks like the bike just crumbled on impact...

Here is another bike from the same incident:

When cycling, I try not to think of such things... It would put you off racing for life

ednwireland

full report here
http://www.rte.ie/sport/cycling/2010/05 ... _day2.html

one broken leg one finger being reattached

hope everyone recovers,luckily no-one killed really

frenchfighter

I hope the driver of the jeep goes to court and gets and ban and fine. Absolutely outrageous. Quickest recovery possible hopefully.

andyp

Idle speculation serves no useful purpose whatsoever so best to keep it to yourself.

The stories I've read suggest the driver pulled out into the course from an unmanned junction between the motorcycle outriders and the bunch. I'm sure an official investigation will decide if there should be prosecutions.

In the meantime, I wish all the riders who were injured a speedy recovery.

Pokerface

One of my teammates from the Irish squad is riding that race - but he was OK. Crazy crash.

I'm surprised they don't have some sort of rolling road closures for this.

flattythehurdler

I think they did, but the jeep got out between them. Can happen easily enough I suoppose.

Av it

I thought the RAS had a rolliong road block / closed roads?

Awful, and best wishes to all

mididoctors

Av it wrote:

I thought the RAS had a rolliong road block / closed roads?

Awful, and best wishes to all

if it did someone ether didn't do their job or the jeep rolled through a marshaled junction


if there are gaps it could and does happen..see Andyp reply

Pross

I see NapD beat me to it in identifying the bike as a Brompton

Seriously though, I'm glad no-one was more seriously injured although there were a few bad ones!

LangerDan

Just some follow-up from a poster ("RobFowl") another forum:

"The Irish Red Cross in particular were outstanding today a fact acknowledged by the AE dept the casualties went to.

The Marshals, support staff from the teams, managers (one in particular) and some cyclists (out watching) were of enormous help. It took 10 to safely extract an injured rider from the bottom of a deep ditch.

A special though goes to one of the Spanish riders who although injured himself insisted on staying with his team-mates to act as interpreter and only got treated himself once they were getting X rays. He got treated (not minor either) then went straight back to interpret more (without a change of clothes) an example to us all...."

moray_gub

frenchfighter wrote:

I hope the driver of the jeep goes to court and gets and ban and fine. Absolutely outrageous. Quickest recovery possible hopefully.

How do you know it is outrageous ? maybe the jeep thouhght he had every right to pull out maybe the road was not closed at all. maybe the road closure system did not work. You really should think things through before you spouting off it just makes you look somewhat foolish.

Tom Butcher

Speculating - but I suppose a Jeep might come down a rough track that the rolling roadblock didn't consider a road as such and so didn't block it. Whatever - I hope the riders make a full recovery.

dave_1

emadden wrote:

Looks like the bike just crumbled on impact...

Here is another bike from the same incident:

When cycling, I try not to think of such things... It would put you off racing for life

from a safety point of view, were bikes 20 years back safer in heavy crashes than these paper mashy things they ride now. I crashed in the Ras 1990 coming off the Kerryman's table and the cause of the snapped carbon forks-TVT frame- was either pulling the brakes too hard and/or the cyclist I hit who was laid out on the ground. Changed bikes. I thought carbon was dodgy as hell then and stuck Vitus 979 forks on rather than carbon.

flattythehurdler

I'd say if you hit a jeep, it wouldn't make much difference.

mroli

Much like a car that is designed to crumple on impact, would a bike crumpling on impact absorb more of the force of the collision? Just because the bikes end up in bits, doesn't mean that they are less safe - the safest car would be one that crumples completely.

Of course you are not trapped inside a bike...

schweiz

mroli wrote:

the safest car would be one that crumples completely.

I don't think so! Before Volvo, SAAB and others started developing crumple zones in the late 70's cars just disintigrated into pieces. In fact we used to joke that a mates Austin Metro had a crumple zone that went from the front bumper to the rear bumper...definitely not a car I would have chosen to be in in a crash! Crumpling is fine as long as it ends at the passenger compartment.